Low Vision

Vision often suffers in patients with chronic ocular diseases such as macular degeneration, glaucoma, and diabetes. Having poor vision may hinder a person from performing their activities of daily living. Here at Hazleton Eye Specialists, we perform low vision evaluations to help utilize remaining vision to help patients with their daily tasks of living. While we cannot fully restore vision, our goal is to get patients back to the activities they once enjoyed. We do so by evaluating patients for low vision devices such as:

High-powered reading glasses

Sunshades

Hand-held lighted magnifiers

Stand magnifiers

Telescopes

Telescopic glasses

Hand-held video magnifiers

Closed-caption television (CCTV)

With the aid of low vision devices and safety strategies, we are able to get patients back to activities they use to enjoy such as:

Reading

Watching TV

Sewing

Crafting

What qualifies someone as a low vision patient? Per the state of Pennsylvania, a person’s better seeing eye has to have a best corrected visual acuity of 20/70 or worse to qualify as visually impaired. Here at Hazleton Eye Specialists, however, we believe that even lesser visual impairments can affect a patient’s life and therefore recommend low vision evaluations even when vision is better than 20/70. In saying this, a comprehensive eye exam is first needed to determine a patient’s level of vision and overall health prior to having a low vision evaluation. Once it has been determined that vision can no longer be improved via glasses alone, a patient may then qualify as a candidate for a low vision evaluation. During a low vision examination, a patient’s visual goals are discussed and attempted to be met through the trialing of various low vision devices.